Cellular phone with caller ID light arrangement

• US 20020183098A1
• Filed: 04/20/2001
• Published: 12/05/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Inventec Appliances Corporation (Inventec Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Inventec Appliances Corporation (Inventec Corporation)
• Inventors: Wang, Shih-Min, Lee, Yung-Tang
• Application Number:
  US09/838,163
• Publication Number:
  US 20020183098A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/566
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/22 Illumination; Arrangements for improving the visibility of characters on dials
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/57 Arrangements for indicating or recording the number of the calling subscriber at the called subscriber's set at the operator set in a manual exchange H04M5/20
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/724 User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 19/048 Arrangements providing optical indication of the incoming call, e.g. flasher circuits

Abstract

A cellular phone is capable of showing a caller ID by light as long as the call ID feature is available by telephone services. A light emitting element is provided in one of a plurality of keys of an alphanumeric keypad of a conventional telephone or a cellular phone. The position of each light emitting element is recorded in a databank of the telephone. In use, one or more light emitting elements are lit. Then, a light emitting driver circuit may be activated to cause the lit light emitting element to even flash. It is possible to identify a calling party by recognizing the lit or flashed light emitting element(s).

Claims

1. A caller ID light device for a cellular phone, said device comprising:

a databank stored in a recording medium having a plurality of caller IDs and a plurality of associated light positions;

an alphanumeric keypad comprising a plurality of transparent keys and a plurality of light emitting elements each associated with one of said keys and assigned with one of said light positions; and

a light emitting driver circuit for searching said corresponding light position in said databank based on said received caller ID and lighting at least one of said light emitting elements corresponding to said matched light position.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein said recording medium is a subscriber identity module (SIM).

3. The device of claim 1, wherein said recording medium is a memory chip.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein said call ID is a telephone number of a calling party.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein said keys are number keys.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein each of said light emitting elements is located within one of said keys.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein each of said light emitting elements is located under one of said keys.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein each of said light emitting elements is a light emitting diode (LED) having a single color.

9. The device of claim 1, wherein each of said light emitting elements is a light emitting diode (LED) having three primary colors.

10. The device of claim 1, wherein said light emitting driver circuit is operable to flash one of said light emitting elements.

11. The device of claim 1, wherein said light emitting driver circuit comprises a timing control chip for driving all of said light emitting elements to emit light in sequence.

12. The device of claim 1, wherein said light emitting driver circuit is operable to cause said light emitting elements to emit light having a variety of colors based on said received caller ID.